


One Life

by Jintian



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-01-28
Updated: 1999-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:19:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jintian/pseuds/Jintian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Scully is returned from another abduction, things change for the partners. May be disturbing if you're looking for a happy ending.  Set during Season 6, post "Fight the Future," pre-"Two Fathers/One Son."</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Life

**Author's Note:**

> The concept for this fic was inspired in part by the far superior "Up the Ladder," written by RivkaT. I just stood on this talented giant's shoulders.

They took her from me on a Saturday, a bright morning on a road surrounded by open fields. It floors me even now, how easily they excised her out of my life. She was a vital organ stolen from my body while I watched as if anesthetized. But the fear stark on her face pierced me even in my paralysis -- that sight burned the memory into my mind, the rare emotion that had escaped her stoic shield. A sign telling me that things would never be the same again.

*

Pennsylvania Route 78  
9:34 am

The sun blazed in the pre-noon outside. The case Kersh assigned us, yet another exercise in superhuman restraint, had broken during breakfast. We filed the requisite forms, strictly fill in the blank, and decided to head back to DC.

She drove while I cracked sunflower seeds and made notes in the casefile. "You think you could hit the next one?" I teased her when she swerved passing a guy with the nerve to drive the speed limit. She didn't say anything back but from the white of her knuckles on the steering wheel I was betting her thoughts couldn't be aired on network TV. Typical Scully, to suffer in silence so I wouldn't think I was getting to her.

Yellow grass lay matted in the median to our left, dead for the winter. I'd just made up my mind to tell her I needed a rest stop when we caught a glare of the sun's reflection on a windshield flashing by.

The state patrol car behind us snaked out with lights flashing.

"I don't believe this," she muttered, straightening to look at the rearview mirror.

I spit some shells onto my hand and shot her a salty grin. "Scully, you speed demon. Kersh'll shit a brick when he sees a ticket attached to our report."

"Mulder, please," she said frostily, her voice frowning at me. Translation: "Mulder, shut up while I handle this moron."

I settled down in the seat, chuckling, as she slowed and pulled over onto the shoulder. I watched the patrol car pull in behind us in the passenger side reflection.

There were two of them, actually, decked out equally in shades and bored expressions. They straightened their uniforms with almost identical efficiency. The one in the driver's seat announced over the bullhorn to turn off the ignition and have license and registration ready.

Scully cut the car off wordlessly and started digging through her pockets, coming out with her badge. She plastered it to the window beside her, looking like the world's most pissed off empress. Her profile forbade any commentary from me.

I twiddled my thumbs and pretended to go back to the casefile.

Suddenly she shifted in her seat. "Mulder, what are they doing--"

The daylight streaming through our windows darkened abruptly and I looked out. They stood one on either side of us, legs spread. They had guns, lethal-looking and aimed carefully in leather-gloved hands. I stared into the barrel on the other side of the glass, inches from my face.

 _What the fuck!_

Suddenly the air in the car had grown impossible to breathe and I could hear the sound of my heart leaping to attention. _Gun!_ a voice inside me screamed into the vacuum of my lungs. _Gun pointed at Scully!_ The fear scrabbled up my insides, trying to escape.

"Both of you step out of the car," the one on her side ordered. "Don't try anything."

"Excuse me, officer," she clipped back, as if she didn't notice they were packing with ammo and deadly intentions, "but we're FBI agents on official--"

"I know who you are, Agent Scully." His tone a cold click. "Get out or I'll blow your head off."

 _No_ the voice moaned.

"Scully," I whispered, willing her to look at me.

She was silent, unmoving, but I could feel her thoughts working. Ideas skittering around, maybe once again she'd pull it together for us to get out alive.

I glanced at the keys hanging in the ignition, wondering the amount of time it would take her to crank the car back on and stamp the gas pedal.

"Alright," she said finally. "We're getting out now."

She unbuckled her belt and opened the car door, slowly. The cop on her side started to back away as she let first one foot, then the rest of her, out.

My limbs had turned to lead. I slid my eyes over to her Sig, tucked in its holster between her seat and the emergency brake. But I could feel the tension of the gun on my side pointed at me like a live thing, ready to lash out if I made any move.

Through force of will, I followed Scully's lead and got out of the car. The troopers kept their weapons trained, careful like vipers. "Shut the doors. Put your hands on the roof, spread your legs," the first one said.

The doors thumped shut with eerie finality. I stared into Scully's eyes as they frisked us, lifting my gun and cell phone, tossing our badges behind the rental without a glance. Her eyes were blue, blue with anger and the force with which she was suppressing her fear. The air crackled over the roof of the car between us.

"Would you tell us what's going on?" I managed.

The cop with Scully just looked at me behind the blank lenses of his shades. He stepped close, producing a pair of handcuffs. He yanked her wrists behind her, cuffed her with rough jerks of her arms.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Officer." Her voice dripped condescension. "Because as far as I know, it's a federal offense to assault an FBI agent."

"Don't you need some kind of probable cause to pull this shit?" I gritted.

"Another word and you're both dead."

The one with me patted my ankle, removing my weapon there. I pressed my lips together, tasting salt.

"Agent Scully, begin walking towards the patrol car. Agent Mulder, kneel on the ground, hands behind your head."

 _they'll kill me they'll take her and oh God Scully_

My bones jarred painfully as I sank to my knees. My hands were iron weights as I dragged them up, laced my fingers. Memory settled over me like a shroud; I'd never thought to find myself in this position again.

Through the windows of the car, I watched her set her shoulders and turn. The cop followed, pacing himself with her, keeping space between them to aim. I turned my head to watch them.

As they cleared the trunk of our rental she looked back at me once, and then he was on her, shoving her into the back of the patrol car, and slamming the door. He got into the driver's seat and started the engine, waiting for his partner to move behind the open passenger side door. He hadn't yet spoken a word himself, but he braced his arms on the window frame and took aim back towards me.

I heard her shout, "No!"

The sound of tires hissing punctuated the two gunshots. And then he was in with the both of them and tires squealed as they pulled onto the road. As they barreled down past me I scrambled to my feet, yanking the car door open. I dove into the rental and grabbed her gun. Cold reassurance of metal in my hand, I aimed towards the patrol car.

But they were too far away. And I realized, Scully was in there. Too dangerous to shoot. I narrowed my eyes. From what I could see, there were no plates on the back. Just the typical cop car stripes. Receding into the distance until she was gone.

I stood there, surrounded by the echoes of silence.

 _oh God think THINK_

 _Scully_

 _oh GOD_

The keys were still stuck in the ignition. I leaned back in to pick them up and ran to the trunk. There had to be a fucking spare in there. Two tires blown, but if I was lucky maybe one of the bullets had missed. Maybe I could--

But suddenly my eyes were blurry and I couldn't find the lock to put the key in. I jabbed it at the trunk, dropping them.

"Shit! Goddammit!" I fell to my knees, running my hands over the ground, swiping furiously at my eyes. My own breath, hitching sobs, filled the air.

My hand struck something. In the dead grass, her badge lay open where it had been thrown. The rectangle containing her serious face stared back up at me. I swiped at my eyes furiously.

I stuffed it in my pocket and lay flat on the ground, searching under the car. The glint of metal told me the keys had tumbled there. I stretched for them, the grass tickling my ear.

Then I had the trunk open, plowing through our luggage, dimly registering that I had torn open a knuckle on the edge of one of her suitcases. The spare tire lay heavy and useless in the trunk. From a distance I registered my hand with its bloodied knuckle scrabbling around the black rubber.

Then I felt something familiar. My hand closed over her cell phone. She'd left it in the trunk for some reason.

"Stupid fuck!" I swore at my hand, sucking on the scrape. I stabbed the phone on and mashed the 0 with my thumb, collecting myself enough to gasp for the nearest State Troopers Office.

The phone seemed to ring endlessly before someone picked up.

"This is Special Agent Fox Mulder with the Federal Bureau of Investigation! I need to report a possible kidnapping." Possible, my ass. No plates on that car meant this was another Consortium screw-Mulder-and-Scully special. I lost it as I bent to look at the tires, the rubber torn and flaccid. "I'm on Route 78, some psychos in a patrol car took my partner at fucking gunpoint! If this was authorized by your office I'd like to know just what the fuck is going on!"

The operator on the other end was female, young, floundering as she urged me to calm down -- _Calm down? Is she out of her goddamn mind!_ \-- while she transferred me to another department.

The sun beat down relentlessly. The world swam around me suddenly.

The state troopers had no record of a patrol car assigned to Route 78, I needed to calm down and explain myself. I said I was FBI? Did I have a badge number?

"You want my motherfucking badge number? I want your entire goddamn force out here after those bastards who took my partner!"

The trooper's voice over the phone swam back to me. Their office was thirty minutes away, the nearest patrol car on I-95 was twenty minutes.

"Twenty fucking minutes?" I roared at him. "We don't have that time! You tell them to get their asses out here or there's going to be hell to pay!"

I clicked off and dialed the Bureau. I didn't know what else to do.

*

Pennsylvania FBI Field Office  
11:48 pm

There was a map of the area where she'd been taken, projected onto the wall of the field office with an overhead machine. A radius of one hundred miles had been marked around a red flag at ground zero. I'd been picked up there by our boys in bland suits.

Patrol cars had clogged the highway, men in uniform milling about with radios squawking. They watched helplessly as the G-men towed the rental off for forensic analysis and crawled over the dead grass looking for clues. But I knew it would be useless. The troopers who took her had worn gloves and had never touched the rental. And besides, the men they probably worked for rarely left anything to be traced.

We'd driven Route 78 in a parade of Crown Victorias and Ford Tauruses, and branched out at each intersection. But every car marked as a state trooper turned out to be legit, and none of the officers I saw were the bastards who took her. Roadblocks had been set, but so far had turned up nothing.

I wasn't surprised. Somewhere inside of me a black hole was unfolding, sucking up everything in reach -- emotion, self-preservation. The matter rushing around the singularity was only a sense of urgency -- _find her, find her now, now_.

The scene in the field office was a play-by-play of the Duane Barry aftermath. The questions asked, the search methods suggested. It was the same goddamn cause, too, I knew it. And now the prospect of another three months searching for her seemed like too much hell to live.

The ache of my body reminded me I'd been on the downward slope of an adrenaline rush for over twelve hours now. I'd been riding on a sharp edge since this morning. I sank to a chair and let my eyes drag to the linoleum floor between my feet. The type found in hospitals and dingy government buildings, police offices. I'd seen too many of them.

Kersh had forbidden me to leave the field office after he realized I'd had no intention of calling to inform him Scully had been taken. He'd pinned me down that afternoon over a cellular call from DC, after the ASAC in Philadelphia got cold feet about me and sought higher approval.

"Sir, we are doing everything we can--"

"I trust the Philadelphia office is quite capable of handling the investigation without you." His voice was cool, wholly unsympathetic. "You are to offer no obstruction to their activities--"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"--either by employing unorthodox methods of your own or by letting personal involvement cloud your judgment. Which I believe, frankly, is impossible for you to do. Therefore you are to conduct your own investigative measures from the field office, and _nowhere_ else. Do I make myself clear?"

"Sir, I think you should know the history of Agent Scully's previous abduction before you--"

"I am well aware of the background." His tone made Scully's best moments look like ice puddles in the shadow of a glacier. "This is exactly why I make my warning to you. Remain in the field office, or don't bother coming back to DC at all. I expect a full accounting in two hours."

The line disconnected. I stood open-mouthed, staring at the patrol cars and G-men milling around in the afternoon glare. I caught the ASAC watching me from his Bureau car, his ambitious fuckhead face now apprehensive. "Agent Mulder, you'll have to come with me now," he said, failing to show any conviction.

I stood where I was, watching the useless activity. There was nothing to be found here, anyway. Wordlessly, feeling my heart swirling into the singularity, I stalked over to the car and got in.

*

"Mulder," Byers was saying to me over the cell phone, "we haven't gotten a lock on any suspicious radio, telephone, or net activity in the area. At the time you gave us, there's not much to go on, either. All of the signals our Philly contact has deciphered seem to be just routine. Here and there a mention of Agent Scully, but only in an investigative context and all on the proper bands."

I rubbed the corner of my eyes. "Look, help me out here. What about any rumblings in any of your conspiracy or hacker groups? Big stuff that may be going down now."

Byers was silent for a moment. "So you really think this is the same as before? The consortium within the government."

"I know this. I _know_ , Byers. Maybe we've stepped on too many toes."

"In Domestic Terrorism?" he queried. "How do you know these aren't just some psychos who pick off people on deserted highways?"

I winced. "It's not, alright? He knew who we were! Our names! They took Scully, goddammit! Why her and not me? It's just like before."

"Alright, alright," Byers said, placatingly.

"Just...just let me know, Byers, okay? Call as soon as you have anything, no matter how small." I tried to breathe regularly as I clicked off.

"Agent Mulder," someone called through the waves of exhaustion crashing over me.

I turned, wincing at the light of the overhead. A secretary handed me a phone. "It's for you." She gave me the same sympathetic glance I'd been getting from the secretaries all fucking day. I grabbed the phone from her.

"Mulder."

"Is this Special Agent Fox Mulder?" the voice asked.

"Yes, what is it?"

"This is Doctor Livingstone at the Delaware County Medical Hospital. I received a patient this evening named Dana Scully. She just came to in the emergency room. She gave me your name--"

I stumbled up, knocking the chair over, not even hearing what she was saying. Somehow I was across the room, my coat and keys in my hands. "She's okay? Is she alright?"

"She's fine, Agent Mulder. Nothing wrong with her that I can tell, but she can't remember how she got here. But the EMTs who brought her said they had to give her a sedative when they picked her up."

"What? Why?"

"Apparently she started screaming as soon as they pulled up in the ambulance. Wouldn't stop until they injected her. She woke up here a few minutes ago. I gave her a cursory examination but so far everything seems in good shape."

My brain whirled, the room spinning with it. "Okay, I'm on my way."

I left the phone on a desk and ran out, ignoring the curious glances of the agents around me.

*

Delaware County Medical Hospital  
Emergency Wing  
12:19 am

I burst through the door of the hospital room like a locomotive, almost knocking her over. She stumbled slightly and caught herself on a bed, dressed in the same clothes she'd been wearing that morning. When she straightened, her shoulders were hunched and tired.

Her eyes skittered to my face, then down. "Mulder," she said. Nothing else. The white of her cheeks was framed by her hair, a bundle of copper wires looking too animated to be a part of the Scully in front of me.

"Jesus, Scully..." I kept touching her, running my hands over her arms and shoulders, caressing the tendons of her neck, smoothing her eyebrows. She withstood it all, saying nothing. I spoke to her eyelids, heavy and drooping. "Do you have any idea how fucking glad I am to see you?"

I could feel her slight trembling beneath my hands, which had lodged at her jawline. Her pulse was strong under my fingers. "I don't remember anything," she whispered. "The EMTs told the doctor--"

"Don't think about it," I tried to reassure her. "You're okay and that's all that matters."

"Am I really?" she said. "I don't know where I was. What could have been done to me." She shook her head, cutting off.

I led her to the hospital bed, pushing her gently so she'd sit, kneeling in front of her. I held her hands, trying to warm them. "Scully, how do you feel? Do you want to get some tests taken or--"

"No," she cut in, unsurprisingly. "I want to go home. Take me home." Her face was shut, gaunt like a wooden door.

There was nothing to do but agree.

*

Flight 287  
8:56 am

We flew back. Most of it Scully slept beside me, bundled in a fuzzy airline blanket, even though she'd gotten more sleep last night than I had. We'd checked into the nearest motel around 2 am, and I sat in the chair in her room, wakeful and watching as she slept.

The copy of the police report read disturbingly like a number of X-Files we'd investigated. She'd been found at approximately 10 pm wandering on the side of the road, a different highway from where she was taken. The woman who picked her up had a cell phone and called 911. The transcribed call described her condition as "extreme shock and catatonia." An ambulance and a trooper were dispatched to collect her, at which point Dr. Livingstone's story was corroborated by the troopers' report.

I went back through the folder. There was nothing on the woman who had found her. It practically screamed of conspiracy.

I tried to rouse some feeling within myself, some anger maybe. Anything to show that I hadn't let this shit escape me just because Scully was alive and beside me again. But those hours when she'd been gone were still with me, totaled in to the months she'd been missing and the last time I'd retrieved her in a Pennsylvania hospital. They expanded the emptiness within and sucked all emotion away.

Scully did nothing to fill the hole. She hadn't spoken more than a few words to me here and there since the hospital. Her replies to my questions about her memory, her emotions, were all distant and noncommittal.

She refused to look at me.

*

Georgetown, Maryland  
10:35 am

"Do you want me to call your mother?" I asked her.

She was wandering through her apartment, touching things as if to make sure they were still correct. She acted like she hadn't heard me, even though I'd timed the question just as she was passing me on the way to the kitchen.

I sighed and followed. "Scully."

She opened the refrigerator and peered in, head and shoulders disappearing.

"Scully, your mom?"

"Why would you want to do that?" she said flatly, making rummaging noises in the refrigerator.

"You don't think she should know about this?"

"No, I don't." She shut the refrigerator and walked back to the living room.

Dismissal. I stumbled after her anyway.

Scully stood at her mantel, rearranging the photos lined up in frames. She was so small I could look almost directly down at the top of her head. I didn't come too close to her, though. The entire line of her body was an arm outstretched for space.

"Uh, do you need some time alone?" My voice was a whine in the stillness.

She turned and nodded, looking at a point past my ear.

"Well, okay... Um, give me a call." Then I moved toward her, reached out carefully and placed a careful pressure on her shoulder. "...I'm glad you're okay...Scully."

She nodded again, her eyes on an angle several degrees off. "Me too," she said.

As I let myself out, she was already on her way to her bedroom.

*

Marriott Hotel, Washington DC  
Two days later  
9:47 am

Diana stalked after me onto the elevator and mashed the emergency stop button. I looked at her without surprise, shifting the casefile folder I held against my side. Her gaze was intense, hardening the planes of her face.

"Fox, I have to talk to you." She leaned close, and I sniffed at the familiar perfume which pierced my nostrils. That same scent used to be the first thing I smelled in the mornings, when she would wake me by climbing on top of my body with a look as determined as the one she wore now.

"Diana, what are you doing here?" I resisted the urge to press myself against the wall farthest from her.

"I couldn't do this at the FBI. Every corner's bugged." She paused.

"So you followed me on a case?" Although when we were together she was ambitious, she'd never gone out of her way to follow a lead, preferring instead to coerce them into coming to her.

"It's about your partner. They did something to her while she was gone."

She looked earnest. But the words threw me for a loop. This, coming from her? "Is this your speculation, Diana? How the hell would you know anything about it?"

"It's true, Fox. I know a lot of things you don't. You've got to trust me."

I sighed. Somehow it didn't ring right, not the words I'd heard from Scully, so long ago, in Diana Fowley's voice. I reminded her,  
"When you left me you gave up all claims to mess with my life."

"I'm trying to help you, Fox," she protested. "Why do you always assume the opposite?"

"Maybe experience has taught me better," I snapped. "I don't need your help or your misguided information." I reached for the emergency stop button.

She caught my hand, and I was too slow to prevent her from clasping it as if she could give me some comfort. The gesture was unlike her; I dropped the claw like a hot potato.

"Look," she said, stepping back up to me. Her eyes searched my expression. "If you don't trust me enough to help you, don't trust anyone else, either. Not Skinner, not Kersh, not anyone."

Her words made suspicion rear up like a cobra. Why was she being so brazen?

"Alright, talk." I folded my arms and met her gaze. "Spender -- did that bastard tell you something?"

"I don't need him to give me information I already know. Look, there are a lot of things I haven't told you, reasons why I came back." Her eyes started that edgy sliding to the corners that fairly screamed she was hiding something. "I have certain...affiliations."

"Like what?" But I already knew. Dammit, she'd been assigned to the X-Files with Spender, after all. I wrestled down the urge to strangle her conniving, conspiring throat.

She cocked her head, and I could see her realizing my conclusions and preparing a recant. "Fox--"

I raised my hands. Her eyes were a stranger's eyes, staring up at me with something I knew I could never forgive. I felt memories rushing up and around me, realigning themselves. This was betrayal then. I spoke, overriding any lies she might speak. "No, just forget it. Just tell me what the hell you came here for."

She had the grace to drop her chin, to acknowledge the already tenuous ties which had been broken here. "Alright. Not everyone has you or your partner's well-being at heart. There's a lot that you're not being made aware of."

"How does this help me?"

She turned, her dark hair falling across her face, and pressed the button. The elevator lurched downwards.

This time I grabbed her arm, pulling her to face me again. I towered over her. "Diana, what? What do you know, dammit?"

"I'm just warning you. I couldn't stand by, I couldn't let myself play this role after everything we mean...used to mean...to each other. Please understand. The bite could come from any corner, Fox. If you don't pay attention, it could be too late."

"Don't fuck with me, Diana." She must be hurting, my fingers were digging into the flesh of her arms. "Haven't they already done their worst to the both of us?" The elevator slowed and stopped, doors opening.

Her expression was closed again as she pried my fingers apart. "Don't be so sure of that, Fox. Just...keep a close eye open," she said, and stepped out.

I tried to follow her, but a mass of people with luggage got on the elevator just then. By the time I slipped out through them and onto the street, she'd disappeared into the crowd on the sidewalk.

*

Alexandria, Virginia  
7:23 pm

That night I called Scully. I offered to come over, bring some food.

"Mulder," she said. "I'm on medical leave. That does not mean I'm suddenly incapable of taking care of myself."

"I know, I know," I told her. God, just hearing her voice on the phone made my day seem worthwhile. "I'm sorry, I just thought--"

"I'm okay," she said. "I'll see you on Monday."

She hung up, leaving me holding my phone and an empty silence. I sighed, leaning back on my couch, staring at the window over my desk.

I remembered days when the cancer dug out gouges in my resolve to be steadfast. It scratched ugly gashes in the strength it took not to wince or rage or let my voice tremble when I spoke to her. The blood that dripped from her nose was my blood. It flowed from wounds that reopened themselves every time she refused to meet my gaze as she held a tissue to her face. Every time she refused to admit that the tumor was beating her. If someone could cut me open now and look at my psyche, I'm sure the scars would be there -- ridged and still sensitive in their permanence and memories.

Sometimes time flew by sickeningly, the brief moments I had with her spiraling into oblivion. I was caught in that drain, trying to fight my way against the current just to keep her in my view. The water of her life, drowning me.

And now I'm surrounded by too much space, too much air. The partner who left my side in Pennsylvania hasn't come back. She's filled up my emptiness with something besides herself. And it's choking me.

*

Hoover Building  
Monday  
8:35 am

"Well, Agent," Kersh said. He was making a grand show of flipping through the papers on his desk, initialing here and there.

"Sir," I said. I shifted in my chair.

He looked up and pinned me with a dark gaze. "Today your partner reports back from her medical leave, am I right?"

"That's correct, sir."

He drummed heavy fingers on the wood of his desk. "I needn't remind you that I believe Agent Scully's return to be a hasty one. Not to mention ill-advised."

"Agent Scully wants to work," I said. I met his stare squarely. "Far be it from me to stop her."

He lifted his chin slightly. The light glanced off of his glasses, obscuring his eyes. "Certain precautionary measures will need to be discussed," he went on, "to prevent any situation in which we find that I'm correct in my misgivings. First of all, neither you nor Agent Scully will be investigating any cases in the field until I deem proper."

I'd been expecting that. I didn't expect the next bombshell.

"Second, as I have already told Agent Scully, she may not leave the greater metropolitan area without directly informing me, in writing, or without receiving my written consent, until such time as I deem proper."

What the hell? She'd been missing for less than two days! He was like a goddamn probation officer. "Sir, I think a few constitutional rights have been--"

"She has already agreed to these measures."

"Like hell! What gives you the justification for imposing some quarantine like a--"

I was pushing myself out of the chair when his voice lashed at me. "Sit down!"

He sounded thoroughly pissed off, but then, he always did. His face was about as emotional as an oak tree, though. "I hope I don't need to remind you whose office you're attempting to leave without permission."

Oh, my God. I was sure I was flashing back to when I got suspended for pulling Mary Leader's hair in third grade. I sat.

"Thank you," he said coolly. "Finally, the last condition. You are to be temporarily assigned a third partner. Special Agent Ben Hutton. He should join you in the bullpen this morning."

I took a breath. "Sir, if we're not going to be in the field, why do we need a third partner? Scully and I are fully capable of handling any in-house cases. I don't think this relatively minor event has impaired our ability to work together."

"Acceptance of these conditions allows Agent Scully back to work," he drawled. "Otherwise, she'll be taking a much longer medical leave. I'm not having any Agent injure herself in the line of duty under my watch."

"And you've already spoken to her about this?"

"I have. I also gave her the next assignment you'll be working on. I'll want a report on my desk next week." The finality in his tone dismissed me.

I stalked out to find Scully.

*

Hutton seemed unaware of the imaginary bullets I was shooting him.

"Been in the bureau almost fifteen years," he said, sipping his coffee. He leaned against my desk, addressing Scully. "It's all I ever saw myself doing, since I was a kid."

She nodded. "I always wanted to have a bigger gun than my brothers."

Hutton smiled at her. He was a master of easy small talk. Already this morning he'd talked about the traffic into DC, the latest impeachment developments, and last night's Wizards game. I just glowered at him. I'd been trying unsuccessfully to catch Scully's eye since I walked in and saw them talking together.

"What about you, Mulder?" Hutton asked. He turned to me, eyes innocently curious.

"Oh, sure," I said, presenting the same look. "When I was a boy I practically had wet dreams about doing meaningless paperwork for a living." I glanced at Scully, but she didn't even smirk.

He laughed. "It's only temporary, Mulder. I'm sure you two'll be back in the field soon. AD Kersh is just being cautious."

I raised an eyebrow at him, Scully-style.

"Me, though," Hutton said, still smiling with that damn friendly look, "I'll be here until I retire. Old injury." He motioned to his leg.

"What happened?" Scully asked.

He shrugged, self-consciously. "Hazards of being on-duty. Say, can I get you two some coffee?"

I pasted a grateful smile on my face. "Sure, that'd be great. Cream and sugar."

Scully shook her head.

As Hutton made his way through the bullpen, I noticed he had a slight limp. He nodded to agents he passed, looking completely unbitter.

I grabbed Scully's elbow before she could sit at her desk. "How could you let Kersh pull that shit?"

Her eyebrow hitched upwards. "I'm sorry?"

"He said you agreed to his goddamn _terms_!"

"What else could I have done?" she asked. "My impression was that I wouldn't be allowed to work if I didn't agree."

I ran a hand through my hair. "There's just some part of me that feels this is just another way for Kersh to reel us in."

"Mulder, it's only temporary." She freed her elbow and let her eyes shift behind me. I knew Hutton was coming with the coffee.

I searched her face, trying to find some crack I could lever open. Not that the bullpen was really a good place to go diving into my partner's emotions, but shit. We hadn't spoken since the night on the phone.

"Scully, I wish you wouldn't hide from me," I murmured as I turned to meet Hutton.

"So," he seemed to loom over me with the upswing of his limp. "Let's crack this baby open." He held up our casefile folder. "We've got some background checks to run."

I watched him as he and Scully divided out the subjects for the three of us. He was an agent I'd seen around the bullpen, likable enough on the surface. But I'd had bad experiences with a certain other partner in the past. Hutton was older than me, though, maybe too old to have ambitions. The harmless manner he presented seemed to negate any shady connections. But six years with Scully have drilled into me that no one is what he appears on the surface.

*

12:07 pm

I got off the phone with Holly just as Scully stepped off of the elevator into the parking garage. "You know Hutton?" I said as I unlocked the car. "He was injured on a routine stakeout when the suspect was alerted to the surveillance. His partner was found dead while Hutton was in the hospital. He reports no memory of what happened."

She buckled her seatbelt. "That's typical in traumatic situations, Mulder. I don't think I'd necessarily want to remember something like that, either."

"But back there in the bullpen he acted like it was just an accident."

"If he has no memory of what happened, he could feel some distance to it."

I studied her, looking away when she glanced up at me. "Well, I'm just glad neither of us had to pull stakeout duty with him in our own illustrious careers."

"Mulder, I understand your suspicion of him, but he seems like a nice guy. I mean, he's only an envelope pusher when it comes down to it."

"That's irrelevant," I said. "Krycek was an envelope pusher before we met him."

She pursed her lips, unwilling to catch the ball.

"Anyway, I'm just pushing my slogan, trust no one." I backed the car out. "Where to for lunch?"

*

Jen's Cafe  
12:37 pm

She was quiet at the restaurant, staring out of the picture window at the busy lunchtime street outside. Nothing unnatural, in itself. We'd long since gotten to the point where idle conversation was unnecessary. But I felt like this was different, thicker and more tangible somehow. I had to make a dent in it. And besides that, this morning I'd just learned something from an old acquaintance.

"Uh, listen, Scully..." I ventured. "About the memories of your disappearance..."

She looked at me questioningly. My heart started to pound a little faster. Why the hell I was nervous talking to her, I don't know. Maybe it was because some part of me knew how she would react.

"You know how we let Dr. Werber regress you that time... When you were on the bridge in Pennsylvania."

"Mulder..." she said warningly.

"Look, I just think he's the key to helping you remember what happened. Maybe the key to your other abduction as well. We can't discount--"

She slapped her hand on the table. I cut off as the rest of the people eating around us glanced over curiously.

"No." She took a breath. "Mulder, I read the police report on how I was found. What makes you think I'd _want_ to remember any of this?"

"Why wouldn't you? Scully, you've had three months total of lost time. Don't you want to know how that was spent? What was done to you?"

"I _know_ what was done to me," she said coldly. "No thanks to you."

I felt that like sand in a wound. After the hearing for Emily, she had never again brought up the fact that I'd kept what I learned from her.

"Look, just hear me out. Werber's been working on a technique where he just tape records the patient's regression, but lets them hide the memories in their subconscious. That way, they can listen to what they've said, but not actually have the memories in their heads."

She shuddered. I could see her trying to still her shoulders by force of mind alone. "And you think that would be enough _proof_ for me? How would I know the whole thing wasn't just some hypnotic suggestion?"

"Well, if you wanted proof, there'd be a code phrase. Something that, when said, would trigger everything to come back. Like a placed suggestion that could make you stand on your head or something." I stopped and looked at her, realizing how trite that had sounded.

She was waving her hands in front of her face. "Just...don't, Mulder. Don't."

"Scully..." I started.

"Look, I know how important it is to you to have the information, but what it comes down to is that it's _my_ information. It's my head and I won't let some crackpot mess with my memories."

"They've already _been_ messed with--"

She stood up. "I'm leaving."

I reached for her hand but she yanked it away. "Please..." God, I was begging her.

"Don't mention this to me again, Mulder," she said, and walked out of the restaurant. Through the window I watched her hail a cab, watched it swallow her and drive off.

I had enough pride not to follow.

*

Alexandria, Virginia  
10:13 pm

That night I sat on my couch. I hadn't eaten since lunch. I went to the office, saw Scully had left a note saying she was taking the rest of the afternoon off. Told Hutton I'd see him tomorrow. Got home, ran until I felt like throwing up. Took a shower and washed off the remains of my day.

I sat there in a daze and listened to the sounds of my apartment, the ceiling creaking, the refrigerator cutting on and off. The door knocking.

 _...the fuck?_

I stumbled up, suppressing the hot hope welling into my chest. I had figured it would be at least tomorrow before she'd want to see me again.

But when I opened the door she was there, standing in her usual dark clothes and morose face. I motioned her in, feeling my hands start to tremble with nervousness. She paused just inside the doorway to my living room, pretending to study the furniture and mess of papers. I stood as close to her as I dared, trying not to eclipse her, as if that were possible anyway.

"I've been thinking," she said.

Her voice was low and dusty, dark like my apartment. I leaned against the doorway behind her, feeling my knees turn to water.

"Scully, whatever you're going to say..." I wasn't sure if I was getting ready to apologize or beg for forgiveness. God, we had a history. So many times, she'd come to my door, and rarely had any good come of it.

"Please, don't speak," she said. She held up a hand, white floating in the low light coming from my living room.

"What are you--"

She turned swiftly and pinned me with a glare, took a deep breath, and the expression on her face spoke to me of fragility, of glass perched precariously high over a hard surface. "Just, don't say anything," she said, and stepped towards me.

Her intent was unmistakable, as she put her small hands on my chest and angled her mouth up towards me, but I had time to think in those aching heartbeat moments, _Oh my God. What could stop us now?_

But sanity intervened. Sanity in the form of a million downcast eyes I had seen from her, countless "I'm fine"s and just recently, her refusal to deal with her lost time.

"Scully, wait." I covered her hands with mine, tried to pull them away even though my entire being screamed protest. "Why are you doing this? Now after all we've been through?"

She shook her head. "How can you really understand? You've never understood me." She reached up again, even as I was opening my mouth to answer her. "Shh," she breathed.

Then her mouth met mine and I was lost, falling not off of a plateau but off of a cliff, down into the depths of the unknown. Lost in the familiar scent of her now surrounding me, her hands slithering up to my hair, the join of our lips and oh, God, the feel of her tongue lightly tasting me. The strain of my erection pressed against her.

There was nothing I could do but follow her lead, nothing more I wanted now than to let her show me what to do. My hands unbuttoning where she guided them, caressing the intimate curves where she placed them. Hungrily lapping at her neck, her sweet nipples as she pressed my head down. The light from the lamp in my living room bathed her in golden tones and shadows as I bared her smooth body.

Somehow we floated to the couch, losing my clothes along the way, finally landing with her chest pressed to my naked skin and I swore I could feel her heart beating. I kissed my way to her navel as she sighed beneath me, a thin winter breeze. My fingers explored the juncture between her legs, the hot slick folds, and she murmured nonsense words into the palm of my other hand. The first sounds other than the whisper of clothes and breathing and flesh on flesh.

"Yes," I whispered to join her, not knowing what I was affirming.

Lost, lost in her tautly muscled thighs surrounding my head, the bittersweet taste and the shape of my mouth against her. My head filled only with her nearness, the pants and strained sounds escaping the column of her throat as I circled her clitoris with my tongue. The shifting of her hips, faster and faster, the blood pulsing towards my groin.

She didn't speak as she shuddered with orgasm, but as I rose over her to kiss her I couldn't stop myself from whispering, "I love you, I love you," into her hair, her cheek, the depths of her mouth. She looked at me, her eyes unreadable in the shadow I cast over her face. I thought she might remind me again not to speak.

"I know," she finally answered. Her tone low and throaty.

Then her hand wrapped around me, guiding me in. I tried to go slowly, to memorize every inch as it slid past. But she lifted her hips with a sudden movement and I was buried in her, a physical echo of what we had been already for six years.

Our eyes met as we began to move, pleasure and urgency spiraling up my spine from where we joined. "Harder," she gasped, her brow tensed. Her touch quested from the back of my neck to my shoulder, down the muscles of my back, cupping my ass and bringing me closer.

I drove into her, trying to make her feel every minute of the years when I could never do this, no matter how much I wanted to. The moments saturated with my need of her that never led anywhere. Aborted attempts at intimacy which always ended with the shut of her emotional doors. My hand traveled downwards and I thumbed her clitoris.

Finally she clenched around me, her eyes slipping closed as she came again, her back arching. I lost my rhythm but it didn't matter. I'd been lost since she kissed me, since she first walked into my office and extended her arm for a handshake.

I could see the edge approaching and fell over it, spasming into her for a small lifetime. "Scully, Scully," I heard myself crying out.

As I slipped out of her I felt her hands in my hair again, smoothing my forehead, her cheek pressed to mine. I panted; my breath shook and trembled. "Shh," she sighed. "Shhh." Then I realized distantly that my eyes were wet. I was weeping. God, I was exhausted.

I turned on my side and cradled my arms around her, this woman who had been ripped from me with violence and, almost, our own inability to communicate. The creaking sound of my sobs filled the air above us as she held me back, murmuring her nonsense words softly.

*

Alexandria, Virginia  
1:20 am

When I awoke it was pitch dark. I was naked, face down, and I couldn't feel my arms. Panic spiked up through me--was I dead? No, I could hear the harsh rasping of my own chest. Buried alive? I could feel space above me, cool air rushing over my back and legs, the familiar leather of my couch pressing against my stomach and face.

I turned onto my side, tried to move the numb weight which started in my arms just below my shoulders, and felt something metal touch my ass. Handcuffs.

The light switched on abruptly, blinding me, and something moved in the room. A familiar scent wafted past. Scully. I remembered everything. God help me, I would remember everything until the day I died and the last fight had trickled out of me.

I felt a slight pressure on my arms, tingling up and down where blood began to flow back. My eyes adjusted and I realized she was leaning over me, dressed again. She held my handcuffs in one hand, testing the tightness. Her scent was all around, mingled with mine and our sex.

"Scuh..." I had to clear my throat. "Scully?"

I felt my arms thump back down as she dropped them. Her small hands, pushing me onto my back and then pulling my lower half onto the floor so I could lean against the couch and face her. She kneeled in front of me, her head bowed and hair curtaining her cheek. Her hands rested on my shoulders.

"Scully, what's going on?" My breath stirred the red strands.

She lifted her face so I could see her straight on, and I recoiled. The scream fought in my throat.

Her expression was blank, cheeks smooth and muscles relaxed. And black oil, deadly familiar, floated over the blue of her eyes. A swarm of migratory birds.

"Oh my God..." I heard someone moaning.

Realized it was me.

 _no oh no please no don't don't_

She -- the thing she had become, the black oil -- leaned in close. The darkness writhing in its gaze filled my vision. "Listen to me," the thing said. Its voice was toneless, an echo of hers issuing from manipulated vocal cords. But the breath on my cheeks was warm.

"Why?" I whimpered. "Why her?"

"Not my choice," she – it -- said.

"Please," I choked, feeling the hysteria threatening to strangle me, "let her go. Let her go."

"Not my choice," it said again.

"Oh, God, Scully, Scully. Please let her go."

"I'm leaving now. I wanted to say goodbye."

I shuddered. Leaving me. Taking Scully's body, the body I had just entered like a dream fulfilled and shattered with the ecstasy of reality. To some place I might never see it again. Where she, the Scully inside probably drowning in the black oil, might never get it back.

"This, though," and the Scully-thing pressed her lips to mine, sickeningly warm and tasting of use and salt tears. A foreign touch cloaked in what I had known so recently. "This was my choice. A gift to you, a last memory."

I turned my face, feeling her tongue slide wetly across the stubble of my cheek. "Get away," I whispered to it. The numbness in my arms was spreading. My heart was surrounded by frost. The emptiness inside surged up like a living entity and engulfed me. "Leave us alone."

The scuff of her shoes on my carpet, the impression of her leaning away. Dimly, I registered sounds of her motion, my gun being lifted from the coffee table.

The blow came then, the heavy butt of the Sig crashing against my temple. And then I swam in blackness as warm as her arms. I searched for her even as I floated. As if this might be where she had drowned.

*

Alexandria, Virginia  
2:12 am

"Mulder, wake up." The voice was male, familiar.

My eyelids dragged open. Blurriness, softening the edges of someone's face close to mine.

"Nnnnuh..." I moaned. "Scuh..."

"Mulder, it's Hutton. Wake up. Come on, buddy."

"What?" I surfaced from the depths of my concussion. "Hutton? What're you...doing here?"

Hutton bent me forward over my lap and moved my arms, pulling at the handcuffs. "I was sent to help you. What happened to Scully?" He dug through the inner pockets of his jacket, coming out with a dangerous-looking metal file.

"Uhh...she--" The last repulsive picture of her, eyes swarming; simultaneously alien and intimately familiar.

What the hell was Hutton doing here? Diana's voice, the flat urgency in her tone warning me, "The bite could come from anywhere." He hunkered down beside me, grimacing and holding one leg straight out.

 _"...I'm just glad neither of us had to pull stakeout duty with him..."_

I tried to yank my arms away from Hutton as he filed busily at the handcuffs, but I could still barely feel them.

"Hold still," he muttered. The sound of metal grating on metal filled my ears. "What happened, Mulder?"

Pins and needles spiking suddenly in my arms cleared the cobwebs. "Why do you want to know?" I tried to snap, but it came out in a harmless whine.

"I told you, I'm here to help you. If you tell me what happened to her, I could tell you where she is."

The handcuffs broke apart, and my arms fell uselessly at my sides. I looked at Hutton. His face was the same earnestly open one he wore in the bullpen.

 _He knows where she is?_

He saw the question on my face, shook his head. He studied me, shifting his eyes away once he glanced downward. I realized suddenly that I was still naked, my ass digging painfully into the carpet. "I guess this is answer enough. Look, just get dressed and come with me. We don't have much time."

"Why should I trust you?" He helped me to my feet. Cold air rushed around my body as I swayed.

"Because there's no one else left to trust."

*

I-95 North, Pennsylvania  
4:45 am

"You thought you were alone, that it was only the two of you fighting against a conspiracy," Hutton said as he drove.

The night sped past outside, white dashes in the headlights disappearing past the edge of the car. I shivered in my leather jacket, even though Hutton had turned the heat on full blast.

"What are you talking about?" I said.

"You don't know, you've only caught glimpses. There are greater goals to be achieved here, beyond both of you. One life means nothing in the grand scheme of things."

I wrestled the familiar frustration. "What grand scheme? Whoever you are, working in the shadows... You tell us nothing!" I bit off the rest of my incoherent tirade. I was swimming in unreality and the only thing anchoring me was the thought that we were going somewhere to find her.

"Look, I'm a middleman, just like you. The only reason I know more now is because events have come to a head."

"You mean Scully's abduction? Were you part of that?"

He shook his head, a dark movement in the black of the car's interior. "No. That was staged so we'd be unable to interfere. An empty highway, a supposedly legal detention by men posing as law enforcement. I told you, I'm here to help. I was sent by someone who's fighting your battle along with you, someone who's been watching over you."

"Someone inside the FBI? Who?" Diana again, her warnings urgent in my head.

I forced my mind to work. Kersh, Kersh had wanted to keep Scully in DC. What did he know? Was Hutton supposed to kill her if he found her, on Kersh's orders? Why was he bringing me along, then? "Is it Kersh you're working for?"

Hutton was silent for a moment. "I was told to take action if she left the DC area."

"What does that mean?" I asked him carefully. My fingers inched toward the holster at my side.

"I was told to prevent her from making contact, at any cost. The black cancer cannot be allowed to rejoin."

 _oh God he really knows then_

The gun was out, and by the way Hutton stiffened I knew he'd heard me cock it.

"Alright, dammit, talk. Everything. Now." I made my voice as toneless as I could over the fear clawing in my throat.

"What are you going to do, shoot me while I drive? We'll crash, Mulder."

"If Scully's dead, if that black cancer has her, do you really think I care? Obviously you were conducting surveillance on us. I think you know now I've got nothing more to lose."

"You're wrong, Mulder. I'm trying to _save_ her, save both of you. The black cancer's taken her back to the same spot. We've got to get to them before she gets on that ship."

"What are you going to do?" I spat at him. "Don't tell me you have some way of overcoming it."

"That's what I brought you for," Hutton said. He was talking a little faster now; he'd fully realized my gun and the death I held for him. "You're immune, you were given the vaccine in Russia. It'll work against this strain for a short time, until I can contain it."

"Scully got the vaccine in the Antarctic! It didn't work for her, apparently."

"It did," Hutton affirmed. "That was why the procedure took so long, why she wasn't returned until hours later. The information we have points to a new strain of the virus, one that's able to mutate the human host directly instead of simply forming a new organism. It's been done before, to the others who've been colonized, the grays, the shapeshifters--"

"You expect me to believe this bullshit?" I asked, incredulously.

"You believe everything, Mulder. Believe the truth this time."

"Not this science fiction. I've seen more believable crap in a comic book. And I've been lied to more times than I can count."

"Look, you've seen how the other strain works. Creating a full organism, lethal at birth, using the host's own tissues. That's only the first stage of colonization. They're testing the second, the mutation stage. That's what Scully's for. She's one of the few survivors after the battles a year ago; you saw the bodies from Skyland Mountain and Pennsylvania. She has the chip in her neck, put there by our own government with technology received from the black cancer. She could be monitored while the virus did its work."

 _...like a lab rat..._ My own words echoed back at me.

Nausea threatened to suffocate my airways. "You're lying," I choked. "This is just another story to pull us down."

"I'm not," Hutton said. "You've got no choice but to believe me. You think this is just about you and your partner. But there's infinitely more at stake."

*

Pennsylvania Route 78  
5:17 am

"How did you know what this was?" I asked him finally. "That she needed to be watched because of...the virus?"

I'd relaxed my grip on the gun, but it was still oriented towards Hutton. Tension radiated off of him the further we drove down Route 78. The dark hung in close all around us as we traveled towards the place where Scully might be.

"We'd been keeping surveillance on another operative, an agent for the Group." I heard the capital letter in his voice. "When she showed up on a 911 dispatch, describing Agent Scully, and then disappeared... We knew she'd been placed to find Scully."

"Who? Who's the operative?" But I knew.

I felt Hutton glance over at me. "Diana Fowley," he said. "You never suspected?"

"I did," I said shortly, not looking back at him. I rubbed my temple.

"Her orders must have come straight from the--"

A dark shadow loomed in front of the headlights suddenly, straddling the highway. A car I recognized, in a fleeting moment, as Scully's. "Watch out!" I yelled. Hutton yanked the wheel sideways, too late.

The crash filled my world with screeching metal and a ton of pressure forcing me sideways, into my window. My neck bowed in agony as glass cracked against my head. Red and black surrounded me like quicksand and I felt myself sinking into it.

The sharp smell of gasoline was a lifeline. I reached for it in my haze, recognizing some importance there. Something, calling me up from oblivion.

Hutton was crumpled sideways. His head, covered in a slick layer of blood, lolled at a sickening angle. The driver's side window seemed to have disappeared in an explosion of glass, splinters of which clung to the airbag pinning him in his seat. I wedged my fingers into his neck, recoiling at the slimy feel, trying to discern a pulse. But his flesh was dead weight. His neck must have snapped when we plowed into the side of Scully's car.

 _SCULLY_

I tore the seatbelt off of me and shouldered the door open. The air outside was cool and thin, but beneath the freshness I could still smell the gasoline, leaking out of one of the cars. I stumbled around to Scully's, searching for a flash of red hair, pale skin.

From what I could tell, it was empty. I leaned over the windows, peering in. Darkness.

There were fields surrounding the road, just like the place where she'd been taken. I could make out the tall grasses now, waist-high and illuminated by gray light. I looked at my watch, tried to make out the time behind the cracked face. It must have been dawn. The sun was probably just peeking up over the edge of the earth.

I squinted at the horizon. There was a figure silhouetted against the sky, hair flying wildly.

It was her. God, it was Scully, standing there dwarfed beneath the expanse of fading stars as if searching for constellations. As if waiting for something.

 _\-- no stay STAY --_ >

My feet moved, propelling me into the field.

Grass slapped wetly against my jeans. I waded with my hands swinging and picking up dew. I was almost running, stretching out battered muscles and pushing through the dizziness. She was so far away.

"Scully," I croaked. I swallowed, feeling my throat rub painfully. "Scully!"

The figure didn't move, just stood there projected against the lightening backdrop of the sky. As if she were waiting for something.

 _no no no_

An explosion blasting from the road. I was propelled forward again, a warm wave of fire with a gasoline smell knocking me to my hands and knees. The grass sliced at my face and left trails of moisture on my cheeks. Amid the sound of glass popping and flames crackling, I heard myself weeping.

Another rush of compressed air, this time cold and metallic. I looked up through tears, feeling something huge and terrible vibrating in the area over the field.

The sky above the grass filled with white light.

*

Pennsylvania Route 78  
Later

I found myself walking. My legs were loose and tired as I meandered through the grass. Ahead of me there seemed to be a split in the field where a mass of flaming metal crouched on a ribbon of asphalt. I plowed my way towards it, feeling an awesome wonder.

The grass parted easily. I swept my eyes from side to side, locked onto something lying on the road in a white heap.

It was her body, a crumpled mass in fetal position on the blacktop of the highway. She lay less than twenty yards from the burning remains of the car wreck, her right hand splayed on the asphalt as if reaching towards it. Everything rushed back to me in a maelstrom of pain and thunder.

I tripped over myself, fell on top of her, grabbed her arms. I meant to pick her up but the screaming pain in my back almost blacked me out all over again. I clenched my hands ungracefully around her armpits, and started dragging her away. She made no sound. I made enough for the both of us, my own moaning filling my ears, her name reverberating in the night.

 _what if she's dead I'm dead gone together_

There was something on her skin, something wet and oily and familiar. It soaked her clothes and hair. My grip kept slipping and I cursed -- God, the universe, the highway we were on.

Finally I collapsed and fell onto my hands next to her. The muscles in my back hunched with too much strain, but I managed to crawl over her. I tried to cover as much of her as I could in case there was another explosion. The road dug into my elbows through my jacket. I was too exhausted to do much more than lie there.

My ear was pressed against her forehead, where I'd let my head fall despite the sickening feel of the oil layer. Dimly, I realized through the fog in my brain that she wasn't breathing.

"Scully," I gasped. God, she could be hurt, she could be dying right there no matter what I'd done. I pressed my hand against her left breast, searching for a heartbeat.

It was there, faint but steady. My fingers lingered there a moment as if to draw my own life from her. I checked her nose, her mouth, plunging my fingers indelicately to clear out any oil that might be suffocating her. Her eyes were clear blue and dilated, the whites clean. I put my mouth over hers, bitter taste of oil biting my tongue, and breathed into her.

 _one two three four five_

My hands were too large on her chest, I had to be breaking her with the force I used to push against her lungs. "Scully," I wheezed between breaths, "please, please, come on..."

Was I kneeling on a highway? Or was I crouched in the belly of an alien ship? Were those flames behind me or the raging of monsters being born?

Abruptly she turned over and vomited, saliva and bile laced with traces of black oil still. God, would it never leave her completely? She flopped back onto her back, breath rasping in my ear. Her eyelids and lips were colorless. But she breathed.

Sirens in the distance registered on my hearing. I wrapped my arms around my partner and huddled, waiting for them to come and save us.

*

Delaware County Medical Hospital  
Two days later

I woke up to the feel of her hand running through my hair. Groggily, I lifted my head from the mattress near her hip and met her gaze. She was propped on the pillows, watching me with a furrow between her eyebrows. A ray of sunlight from the window of the hospital room lit her hair. She looked alert finally; she'd pretty much slept through the past 48 hours.

"Good morning, sunshine," I said softly. A smile tugged at my lips.

She didn't smile back. "Mulder, tell me why I'm in the hospital again." Her voice was small and deadly serious.

I stood up from the hospital chair, stretching my bruised back. I leaned over her and stroked her cheek. "You don't remember?" I watched her carefully.

Scully shook her head slowly. "Are we still in Pennsylvania?"

I eased myself down next to her. "Yes. How much can you recall?" I held my breath.

Her eyes searched my face. "I remember going to bed in the motel. Did something happen to me, Mulder?" She caught my hand and clasped it.

I sighed. Her grip held echoes of her hand, stroking me in the dim light of my apartment. I remembered her face clenched in beauty as she gasped beneath me.

But she was sitting there looking at me, and there was only worry and bewilderment on her face now. "What is it?"

"It's been two weeks since that, Scully," I said gently. I watched puzzlement wander the lines of her mouth and eyebrows. "You were abducted in Pennsylvania. I was told that you were infected with the black oil, a different strain than the ones we've encountered."

Total disbelief. "Who told you?"

I traced her knuckles. "You met him, but you won't remember, most likely. His name was Hutton. He helped me find you again."

"Again?"

I nodded. "You...were returned, but I didn't know about the black oil. Then you...left again, you went back to Pennsylvania, and Hutton and I went after you."

"What do you mean I _left_ again?" Her voice was rising, the way it did when she couldn't fully control her fear.

"Scully, you...you weren't yourself. You were under the influence of that thing."

Her eyebrows shot up. I rushed ahead.

"We had an accident in Pennsylvania, the last time I found you. Hutton was killed in a car crash. I saw you, standing in a field. There was a bright light." My throat closed.

She was shaking her head. "You're telling me that it happened again, Mulder. That I lost time again, two weeks worth." She stopped and looked at me. "That I...was _possessed_ by some extraterrestrial diesel oil. That's what you're saying to me."

I nodded, feeling shot down by her flat tone.

"I suppose this bright light was an alien ship, then? Does that mean there's no more black oil inside me, controlling me?" Her voice was biting now, ragged on the edges.

I tried to show her, to make my expression tell her what was so hard to say in words. But I noticed something. Tears, welling at the corners of her eyes and filling the bottoms.

She didn't say anything as I reached out, placing her head on my shoulder. Her breath and her tears were hot. She shuddered in my arms, an echo I felt inside of me.

"Shh," I said uselessly. "Scully, just be thankful that you're back."

Her hand in mine twisted into a fist. "I can't," she whispered, suddenly forlorn. "I'm tired of waking up not knowing where I've been."

I drew back to look at her expression. Her cheeks were splotched red and her lips trembled. And I remembered what it was like to kiss them, how warm and sweet she tasted. How we fit together.

How I had woken to her eyes filled with foreign blackness.

I pushed the thought away, burying it beneath the sense of her, only her, surrounding me now. "Scully, it'll be alright. You're safe now." I tried to give her reassurance with raised brow and lilting voice.

Scully pressed her lips together to stop them trembling. She took a few deep breaths, withdrawing from me as quickly as it took to blink.

"How do you know that?" she asked, holding her voice carefully without shuddering.

She didn't wait very long for me to answer. I couldn't anyway, conscious of the truth lying strangled on the bed between us. What Hutton had said during the drive to Pennsylvania, his conviction of what this new strain might have done to her. Perhaps permanently. But he was dead now, and I'd probably never be able to verify what he had told me. Our future loomed large and unknown before us.

I tried to meet her eyes, but there was something there that was too strong and desperate for me to answer to. I sensed her glancing towards the window of the hospital room, then back at me.

"You don't," she said.


End file.
